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After a tip-off from an Egyptian vet, Animals Australia sparked a government investigation into what an industry leader described as “horrific” slaughtering practices in Egypt last year. Tougher rules have now been promised.
Animals Australia, CC BY-NC-ND

Flanked by the chief executives of the Australian Livestock Exporters Council and the Sheepmeat Council of Australia, Joyce stressed that the deal would be a win, win, win: good for Australian sheep producers; good for the people of Iran; and – he stressed – good for animal welfare.

Live export rules

adherence to World Organisation for Animal Health animal welfare standards

exporter control of the supply chain, including at the point of slaughter

a traceable supply chain

and an independent audit of the supply chain.

The Agriculture Minister said that once feedlot and abattoir facilities in Iran won approval under Australia’s ESCAS welfare rules, exports could resume. And, he said, that would mean improved animal welfare outcomes overall.

Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce announcing in March this year that the government was reopening live cattle and sheep exports to Egypt.Daniel Munoz/AAP

Curiously, while Joyce was able to produce two industry representatives to appear at his media conference, no comparable representative was there to comment on his animal welfare claims. Notably absent was either the RSPCA or Animals Australia, two well-known, well-respected and highly politically-engaged animal welfare organisations.

Only a year ago, the live cattle trade to Egypt was voluntarily halted after what Australian Livestock Exporters Council chief executive Alison Penfold described as “horrific” acts of “outrageous cruelty” against Australian cattle.

How well does ESCAS protect animal welfare?

Putting aside some of those recent controversies, one animal welfare concern worth noting is that some animals travel better by boat than others – and sheep are not natural seafaring animals.

Every six months, the minister must table in Parliament a report from the department that includes livestock mortalities on every sea voyage. The table below summarises those reports to Parliament, showing that 14,067 or 0.74% of the sheep exported in Australia’s live trade died at sea – an improvement on the massive losses a decade ago, but still a high toll.

So just how well is ESCAS performing? As any first year legal student can tell you, laws without an accompanying enforcement mechanism are of little value.

Yet enforcement – or making sure there is an “independent audit” of the supply chain in the importing country, just as the ESCAS rules promise – appears to be a big challenge for Australia’s Department of Agriculture.

Who’s really policing our animal welfare rules?

Of those 34, 19 were made by Animals Australia; seven by exporters; three by the public; two by the RSPCA; two by an external party; and one by the media.

Based on this, Animals Australia appears to be doing a disproportionate amount of unpaid enforcement work on behalf of the Australian government, the Australian people and industry. And you have to ask: what exactly is the Department of Agriculture itself doing to enforce the ESCAS system?

Those figures, and the fact that “horrific” mistreatment has been uncovered by animal activists rather than by officials, raise the question of who’s really policing these standards. If the federal government is serious about ensuring our animal welfare standards are the best in the world, perhaps it could consider funding Animals Australia to continue upholding the “independent audit” fourth pillar of the ESCAS system.

While the exclusion of any kind of animal welfare organisation from the minister’s press conference was disappointing, both the RSPCA and Animals Australia have since made their views clear.

“The government is talking about opening a new market when there is no one even policing the old markets,” Animals Australia said in a statement.

“I think there’s enough examples with ESCAS going terribly wrong and the government doing really very little in order to bring exporters into line and to take away their licences, when they’ve shown time and time again to be getting it wrong.”